Arquivo

As from the image of good giant Zishe Breitbart, a character in Hebrew tradition situated between myth and reality, German film maker Werner Herzog creates a parable about the power of Nazism in Europe. Zishe, Jewish in origin, lives in a village far away in Poland and is of extraordinary physical strength. Very strong, but ever so naïve, he arrives in Berlin in the early thirties, when the violence and arrogance of Nazism are beginning to prevail. Converted into one of the attractions in a freak show, Zishe is employed by a magician, Hanussen, the owner of an establishment that attracts the leaders and fanatics of Hitler’s national-socialist party. The main objective for Hanussen is to become a “Minister of the Occult” in Germany. However, instigated by a rabbi to the effect that he is predestined to save his people, Zishe rebels, in anticipation of the tragedies that are to sweep the old continent.